Saturday, October 22, 2011

Do not get bogged down on A3 and VSM . . .

A3 Thinking, and I am contemplating including VSM, is the Toyota story board for documenting problem solving. And I do want to stress documenting. The real context of the A3 and VSM is to Gemba, to involve the stakeholders, so a satisfactory ending to the story can be accepted and supported by all.

When you do not understand something you spend time trying to understand. However, when forms are used some people seem to get bogged down on the mechanics of using the form rather than the intent of problem solving (including myself). Probably because at the end of the day you want to document your findings in a format others can understand, sometimes thinking this is the only important thing. However, for A3 and VSM you need to keep reminding yourself you are uncovering and telling / painting a story for others to follow. It does not matter if you change technique between stories, as long as the individual story is understood by all. 

And I will now add, it is not about paper size when we are talking about A3 thinking. However, I do agree a 1-page document does force you to be concise. And it just so happened that A3 paper, close in size to the 11x17", was the size that was practical for electronic transmittal at the time Toyota started all of this.

A3 and VSM requires you to be a sleuth, investigator, probing and asking why, getting others involved to provide bits of information. These bits by themselves do not mean anything, however when put together they tell the true story of what happens(ed). Knowing the details addresses true root cause. Not knowing the details is jumping to conclusions. What is needed is a learning experience for all through involvement at some level. This gained tribal knowledge then keeps the continual improvement wheel turning.

Do not expect to get an A3 or VSM right the first time. It should and will take several rewrites. Though I have not produced many A3's, I can speak of my process development experience where I had up to 23 revisions in my process project for one flow chart. I do not expect an A3 or VSM to be revised or rewritten so many times, however I am open to the opportunity. 

Ownership is very clear in an A3. The person working the A3 is the responsible party, no matter what their rank is within the company. This holds the responsibility with a single source, rather than leaving it unclear or a result of groupthink. The owner follows and learns the PDSA cycle (Deming Cycle or PDCA if you still prefer). The owner learns the true value of A3 and VSM; Gemba – the real place, or Genchi Genbutsu – Go see the problem. This is the belief that practical experience is valued over theoretical knowledge. You must see the problem to know the problem.

A3 and VSM are about the research and uncovering all that can be uncovered, and to develop a reasonable countermeasure to improve the situation1. It is not about the format and fitting information into pigeon holes. As with anything involving change, this will be a struggle. The goal should be to use constant effort to embrace change, making it easier to do A3’s as you move forward.

As I had been VSM trained, and now realize it was with intent, I am not going to go through how to use the forms. You need to go beyond the forms first, learn for yourself, become a different person for yourself. You need to do the hard work of Gemba, Genchi Genbutsu. It will become a form of enlightenment, freeing you of the burdensome day-to-day status quo culture and toward kaizen.

Do not get bogged down in the mechanics of A3 and VSM forms. Explore, become a sleuth, involve stakeholders and keep them informed of your progress. Compile the true story from short stories of others. Make sure the end of the story has a positive outcome toward kaizen. And I will state here, keep the customer in mind.

For the best information on A3 thinking read the book "Managing to Learn".


1. John Shook, Managing to Learn: Using the A3 Management Process (Cambridge, MA: The Lean Institute, 2008), 2.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Standardized Work . . . What is it?


In the Lean world many are confused on what Standardized Work is and what it can do for you.  Do realize this came from Toyota.  The definition I use from Toyota is:  Work that is organized around human motion that creates an efficient production sequence without Muda.  (Click here for Toyota’s exact definition.)   It is made up of three elements:  Takt-time, work sequence, and standard in-process stock.  The definition is simple, yet many complicate it.  Also note my training from TSSC (Toyota Production System Support Center) and their Toyota representatives, specifically went out of their way to state “standardized work” and not to say “standard work”.

Standardized work is not a guarantee you will produce quality.  What you are doing is base lining the process for problem solving, and improving your chance to repeat the process.  Variation is always present.  Your aim is to understand and minimize the variation in the widest process window possible that produces something acceptable to the customer.  Standardized work is a repeatable process that assists in controlling variation in the process.  Standardized work helps in identifying waste.

I have watched some of Deming’s lectures on DVD.  I have a few more to complete.  One thing I keep walking away with is Deming mocking Standardized Work and Work Standards as providing quality.  This is because “true values do not exist”.  If it happens, it is random.  It is not repeatable.  Deming also has stated “uncontrolled variation produces low quality”.  Standardized Work does help control some of the variation.

“Where there is no standard, there can be no kaizen.” – Taiichi Ohno

Standardized work is the base line, the bench mark, for continual improvement, and I will add I use the concept in problem solving.  In problem solving we need to know the base line condition in order to determine if we have a problem or not, and whether we are “improving to” or “improving from”. 

The definition of a problem I like to use is: The difference between what is and what should be.  There is way to look at a problem too.  Are you correcting something or improving something (the “to” or “from”).  And yet there is also a way to look at the problems potential.  Is it sporadic or chronic?  Each of them shares similar if not the same problem solving techniques.

Generally we look at problem solving as “what went wrong”.  Sometimes we may need to ask “what needs to go right”, is standardized work still in place?  In either case, we need a bench mark to compare, to do a gap analysis from “what it is” to “what it should be”, or “current state” to “future state”, or “where I am now” to “where I want to be”.

Standardized work does involve some forms, time studies, calculations, charting, however you go to the extent necessary to visualize waste.  At the initial start of standardized work I recommend you start at the high level activity within the cycle of work.  There will be plenty to keep you busy, developing the work sheets and training personnel on how to standardize their work sequence, and then for the personnel to question “why did I do that out of sequence” in order to identify problems.  As you improve the process, you can then drill down into more detail, uncovering more waste in the process.  I would like to highlight that the forms are important, however I am not mentioning them here because more important is the philosophy of a repeatable process, one that you can see waste as it happens, and to kaizen out that waste.

So what is it? – Work that is organized around human motion that creates an efficient production sequence without Muda.  It is that simple.  Oh, and also add it is a good baseline for problem solving.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Be a novice and report mistakes . . .

Reporting mistakes or near misses are an important topic to me, yet it is the least discussed in the business world. Why is there not a cultural environment allowing reporting of mistakes or near misses? What brought this to mind was an article on poka-yokes titled, “It’s Not Rocket Science” by the Old Lean Dude of GBMP (Bruce). This was also brought out in the book, “The Nun and the Bureaucrat” by Louis M. Savary and Clare Crawford-Mason, which was accompanied with a documentary CD titled, “Good News . . . How Hospitals Heal Themselves”. The point being made was, how can we improve our processes if we keep wanting to point blame for mistakes and near misses?

My experience has been, when team members tell me they inadvertently induced something into the process to create a bad part (caused variation), or just plain mixed up the sequence, I would say out loud “Cool, there is something I can improve!” And I thank them for giving me this opportunity (yes, I really do that). The team member now becomes my customer whom I have to satisfy.

As the Old Lean Dude pointed out, hassles create stress for the employee. Think of it as employee harassment if you will. We have been educated on harassment and how it can affect people. In harassment you do not say or do certain things that can be construed as offensive, making the other person uncomfortable, making the other person wanting to stay away from you, work in another area, or sometimes just plain quit the company. In other words, stress. Punishing team members for mistakes becomes stressful too. The environment for reporting should be the opposite of harassment, meaning you Want to report you did something wrong that created the defect or defective product / service / information, and without ridicule or fear of a write up.

The nice thing about a team member reporting a mistake is that they made it, they can tell you about how they made it, and most likely they have a solution to prevent it from happening again - a poka-yoke. Is their suggestion always the best one? Sometimes, and sometimes not, however Never say No to their suggestion. Think about it, ask yourself why would they choose such a solution, how does it affect safety, the process, quality, the human side of standardized work? Can everyone else use the poka-yoke with the same success? Does it add too much cycle time or perhaps reduce cycle time? There are many questions to ask. As you ask, use that team member as your sounding board, weighing the pros and cons, developing a better mouse trap by piggybacking of the team member’s solution to developing perhaps a better solution. Do not revert to the 8th waste - under-utilization of human resource.

Another piece of information from both the above references was “near misses”. It seems all of the team members know about the near misses, but never the supervisor. I agree. Near misses are caused by the process, and the team members have learned how to deal with them because the supervisor does not want to. These near misses may be a greater portion of waste than we realize. It causes the team member to develop work arounds. It burdens the team member with more responsibility/hindrance to meet TAKT. This is where production boards need to be put in place and the team members allowed to write in misses and mistakes that caused missed pitch/cycle/TAKT in the process. This should be a “no blame” board. It is then the supervisors Standardized Work to review this board, assign responsibility to resolve these issues, set the due date for closure, and to report to management.

Communication is the most sought after tool, yet it is one of the lower skill sets each of us have. We may talk well, persuade well. But do we listen well, empathize well, show concern in our posture, facial expression, and eye contact. Why are team members afraid to report mistakes? Is it because supervisors do not care or not wanting the added responsibility? Or, is this totally different in that the team member is tired of reporting and seeing nothing ever done? Most likely both.

One other credit I want to give to the Old Lean Dude is the quote he cited, “Creativity comes from involvement” by Rollo May. And as the Old Lean Dude wrote, “No one cares more about the quality of a job than the person doing it . . .” Mistakes are good. We learn from them. I have made plenty and will make plenty more, and will be very vocal admitting when I do. How else do we (or the process we work within) improve?

I would like to leave you with the following quotes:

“Motivation is everything, tools and methods are secondary. Any tool or method will work if people are motivated. And no tool or method will work if people are not motivated.” – Michinkazu Tanaka (What I learned from Taiichi Ohno)

“People working together with integrity and authenticity and collective intelligence are profoundly more effective as a business than people living together based on politics, game playing, and narrow self interest.” – Senge

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison

And lastly:

“Never listen to the shop veterans . . . wisdom is born from the ideas of the novices.” – Taiichi Ohno